Witchkraft the muggle way
by Narutoscreed
Summary: 5 year old Harry does magic and when Albus comes to obliviate Harry and who ever witnessed his magic the spell doesn't work for some reason and Harry remembers what he's done and sets out to learn as much as he can. Powerful wandless Harry. no ship/slash
1. Chapter 1

A different beginning

A different beginning

Chapter 1

Disclaimer, enough said. Everyone knows what one of them is so why bother.

This is a plot bunny which I thought might be interesting to chase down its hole. I just wanted to make sure I had the first chapter down so I wouldn't forget it. I don't know when I'll get around to continuing this one since I'm working on another story at the moment. I dare say reader response will determine if I devote any time to this in the near future.

/ Little Whinging 1st October 1985 10a.m. \

Harry Potter was currently taking a walk around the neighbourhood, not an unusual thing for a young boy to do, but then Harry wasn't your typical boy. He was currently five years old, and not too many children that age would be allowed to wander too far from home. In fact most children were well protected from the dangerous world outside their front-yards and weren't allowed to leave without an older family member to escort them.

Harry had no such restrictions placed on him and would garner many odd looks as people watched him wander aimlessly by, either uncaring about the boy or unwilling to poke their noses into others business. In another town a concerned citizen might call the child over to chat with them while they called the police to help the lost child but that was a different town to Little Whinging in Surrey and thus has no part in this story. No, here in Little Whinging people were to busy gossiping to actually wonder what a child that young was doing alone, and besides Little Whinging didn't have any of that 'Sort' to worry a child. Though if you believed the gossip then the boy they were currently watching was growing up to be that sort and would bear watching in the future.

If anyone had thought to ask the child what he was doing, or where he was going they would have been amazed and massively disturbed at his imaginative answer and assumed that the child was having a flight of fancy. They would however have been wrong, Harry wasn't a fanciful child at all having had such drivel pounded from his waifish body by the cloddish fists of his uncle 'Won't be having any of that nonsense' Vernon. Harry's answer would have been factual and concise since neither of his relatives could stand to listen to him waffle on about his day, not when they could be listening to their Duddykins anyway.

He would have merely explained that he'd observed that whenever he did something strange at home an old man with a stick would appear as if from nowhere. The old man wasn't just old either, he was strange, he always looked like the pictures he'd seen of Rip Van Winkle in the one book he'd been allowed to keep. Not that he could read it, but the pictures were good if not as colourful as the old man who kept coming to his cupboard was wont to dress. When the man arrived he'd find Harry no matter where he was hiding and then he'd wave that stick of his and say something like Oblivate or something like that, no hold on Obliviate, that was it. Then he'd talk to Harry for a while telling him he'd forget what he'd just done and go on about his day as if nothing strange had happened. Then the old man would do the same thing to whomever Harry had done the strange thing to. The difference was that the person would stare at the old man blankly and nod their heads as if agreeing with him. The man would then wave his stick and undo whatever Harry had done to them or around them before he'd once more disappear with a loud cracking sound.

The young boy wasn't sure how long that had been happening to him, but he did remember the first time he recalled it. It was…

/ Flashback to 2 a.m. 19th August 1985 \

It was dark in his cupboard when he woke up panting in fear. He knew he'd probably screamed out loud, but he couldn't help it, that dream always scared him. The loud cackling laughter and the sound of a woman screaming something that Harry never quite heard. The flash of green was always the point where he'd wake up sweating profusely as his body prepared him to run away. He had a bad feeling that this had been one of the times when he'd had the dream lots of times and hadn't been able to wake up quickly. That wasn't really his fault though since he'd been weeding the garden and doing numerous other chores around the house all day and he was much more tired than usual.

That wouldn't save him though, he knew that shortly his uncle would come thundering down the stairs and tear the door of his bedroom open to begin berating him for waking him up when he had work in the morning. If he was unlucky the man would continue like that for ages, ironically losing much more sleep than if he'd just rolled over and gone back to sleep in the first place.

Gods he wished he could see something, anything! He'd woken up, he knew that much but he really couldn't tell if his eyes were open, though his brain said they were. There was absolutely no light in the enclosed space and Harry couldn't escape the effects of his dream totally because of it. In his desperation to be able to see Harry was unaware that he manipulated his magical core and produced a small globe of magical light that floated above his head. He was too busy sobbing in relief to care what it'd mean to him. He wouldn't hear the door to his uncles' room opening upstairs, though it was hard to miss the aforementioned 'Thundering descent' and he could see the dust as it was shaken from the underside of the stairs. A moment later Harry's eyes widened in apprehension as the door to his space was opened with wrenching force and the purple demon head appeared above him.

"Why you…" his uncle was extremely agitated, he could tell by the fact that the man wasn't worried about the spittle that flew from his quivering lips as he ranted on and on with the veins in his temples pulsing in time with his rampaging heartbeat. A minute later Vernon would finally notice that the light he assumed Petunia had left on under the stairs wasn't in fact coming from the light-bulb but was floating in the air. The vein of his outburst changed into his standard 'You freak' speech as Harry called it. Though this time the man was already angry enough and thus it didn't quite happen as Harry thought it would. A massive meaty fist reached into the cupboard and grabbed onto the poorly fitting clothes Harry was forced to wear to bed and pulled him from the cupboard.

"Damn freak! I'll show you! Oh yes you'll rue the day you came to my home with your monstrous ways." Vernon shook the young lad's tiny frame viscously before slamming him back into the wall above the small cupboard door. The breath exploded from Harry's body, and already fearful after waking from the nightmare he'd panicked further. Another point was that he was already primed to using magic since he'd created the light that started all of this. One thing that all parents of wizards are taught is that a scared wizarding child will do unpredictable things if scared or startled enough. This was something that should have been explained to the Dursley's but unfortunately, either by haste or design no one had taken the time. Thus it would come as a complete shock to Vernon when a shaft of wild magic struck him in the sternum and pushed him backwards with incredible force. He could feel it as his ribs shattered tearing his innards to shreds. A pain that was eclipsed a moment later when his back forcefully impacted the plastered wall to the living room with a thud that shook the entire house.

The plasterboard gave way under the force of the blow and exposed the beams that actually formed the wall, though Vernon didn't care about that at the moment as his spine had just impacted a cross bar while he was travelling at nearly a hundred miles an hour with a rather inevitable result. There was another sickening crunch as three vertebrae gave way, tearing the spinal cord. In a sense it was a relief for the fat man since he could no longer feel anything below his chest and thus the pain he had been feeling vanished completely. That left him time to wonder how Harry was just suspended in the air like that completely unaffected by gravity. He wasn't faring much better, though it should be explained he was actually lodged between two upright pieces of timber that were spaced two feet apart so the force that was still trying to push him into the front room was superfluous. More important was the fact that Harry's eyes were glowing in the darkness with a vivid emerald green that lit his face in eerie and frightening ways.

Vernon was the first to catch sight of movement out of the corner of is eye. He'd have turned his head but his energy was fading fast and it didn't really matter all that much, nothing mattered very much anymore. Having a full grown wizard enter his house had an odd way of refocusing his mind though and he began to glare as an extremely old man with a long white beard stalked over to his nephew. For some reason he found that the man's eyes sparkling in the darkness as they did were nearly as terrifying as Harry's green glowing eyes. Those eyes also turned to regard him before returning to the little boy.

"Oh Harry, I wish you hadn't done this." Harry who hadn't seen the man until he'd stepped between him and his uncle looked up at the tired sounding voice and looked into the weathered face of a very old man. Once he locked eyes with the man he watched the stick the man held as the man said something that he missed completely. He heard what followed though.

"You'll return to sleep shortly and when you awake you'll think that nothing strange has happened. None of this is important and neither you nor your uncle has done anything strange tonight." The man had then waved his stick again and Harry had felt himself falling into the man's arms, then very carefully he was laid back onto his cot and the covers were pulled up over him. "There you go Harry, now sleep," the man said before turning away to deal with his uncle as if he expected Harry to obey him and just go to sleep. Harry on the other hand was too keyed up to sleep and hadn't felt the effects of the spell that should have put him to sleep. Neither did the stranger notice that the young boy hadn't done as he expected and that he'd assumed his magic had worked without stopping to make sure. Harry watched as something was put on his uncle's body and then almost yelped as the fat man vanished without a trace. If he'd have been less tired he would have grinned and wished he could do that to the other Dursley's.

The man wasn't finished yet though, and Harry watched fascinated as the man waved that stick of his again and said, 'Reparo'. The spectacle of seeing the damaged wall pull itself together once more almost had Harry excited enough to want to wake up fully and ask the man how he'd done what he'd just done. The old man hadn't given him a second glance since he'd told him to return to sleep and he didn't as he said, 'Finite' and sighed as the light above Harry finally extinguished.

The magical backlash of having his spell ended was enough to send Harry to sleep as he'd used a lot of magic for such a young boy. By the time Dumbledore was paying attention to the boy once more those emerald coloured eyes that reminded him so much of young Lily Evans were closed so he didn't know that his spells hadn't had the desired effect. He wouldn't allow himself to feel remorse for Harry's current situation because it was for the 'Greater good' of both the child and the magical world as well.

/ End Flashback \

He'd never figured out how his uncle had gotten to the bottom of the stairs. He hadn't known how much damage he'd done to the man but apparently he was much better than he had been. He certainly wasn't spewing bloody froth from his mouth like he had been the night before. When aunt Petunia had found her husband she'd screamed bloody blue murder and bolted for the phone to call for an ambulance which turned up with its sirens blaring. It was a sight that Harry would miss since he was still locked in his cupboard after the strange man had left. When the paramedics had asked what had happened she'd answered that she didn't know, which was true. She suspected Harry had something to do with it. She couldn't actually blame him though since he was still locked in his cupboard and she certainly didn't want to draw official attention to the fact that they'd locked a five year old, no matter how much of a freak he was, into a dark enclosed space.

His uncle would be in hospital for a long time after that with a damaged spinal cord. The doctors said there was some hope that he'd walk again but that they shouldn't get their hopes up. They were right as well, Vernon would return home early the next year in a wheel chair. He had full use of his upper body. It was just his legs that wouldn't respond to his wishes.

He was a lucky man in one sense; Grunnings was a family run business and tended to treat all of its staff members as such. Though in Vernon's case he was the much disliked second cousin you saw as rarely as possible since he was a bullying git whom you'd hated since you first met him. He was still family and family stuck together, or so Mr Grunning insisted. That was why he'd kept Vernon's job open, he'd also paid him half salary while he was in the hospital. When he'd returned to work they'd discovered that it wouldn't be possible for him to do his old job so he'd been promoted into the sales department. On top of that the company had allowed his injury insurance to be paid out, along with the fact that Vernon himself had understood just how dangerous it was to work in a factory with lots of heavy machinery had double the insurance voluntarily. With the double insurance payout and half salary they hadn't suffered any hardship in the months that he'd been out of the house. Even rebuilding the house so that he could move about more easily in a wheel chair hadn't been a financial burden so they were all quite happy. Except for the fact that he was injured in the first place that is.

Harry didn't see any of the benefits of all of this extra money in the house, well other than the stairs being widened slightly to allow for the chair lift, which expanded his bedroom. He'd had to sleep on the kitchen floor while that was happening.

After that fateful 'accident' he'd seen the old man quite often as he allowed something strange to happen to whomever happened to be making him angry at any given time. The man never introduced himself so he never learned a name but he came to know what the man would do when he arrived. First he'd seek out anyone who might have witnessed the incident and 'Obliviate' them, they always looked glassy eyed after he did that and seemed to forget whatever Harry had done to them or around them. Then he'd repair or stop whatever Harry had done before turning to Harry and obliviating him. The fact that Harry still remembered what had happened after the old man left while no one else did escaped both the man and the boy. One thinking his spell casting was infallible while the other didn't know why it was important.

After a while Harry stopped the strange 'events' from happening since he'd gotten tired of the game. The old man always turned up no matter what he did to hide what he'd done. He would rather wait until he had them away from the house anyway. He'd noted that the few times he'd done something to Dudley during a chase that the man hadn't appeared. Now it can't be said that Harry was stupid. After all genetics will tell, and Harry had both a master prankster and the brightest witch of her generation in his gene pool, even if he didn't know it. So it didn't take him long to figure out that when he was away from his home it was open season on Dudley and his gang. He'd done some experimenting after that and discovered some interesting things. The small park that Dudley favoured for his 'Games' was too close to home and the old man appeared when he did something strange. While the library was far enough away that the old man wouldn't show up.

He'd sat in the library thinking for hours after that. He'd figured that the man had some way of figuring out when something strange happened, it didn't take a genius to figure that out. What did take a rather smart lad to figure out was a way to test the extent of the man's sensors without giving the game away. That was what he was doing now. Starting at the library where he knew the man couldn't sense him he'd begun to walk back towards Privet drive. Every so often he'd 'do' something and then wait five minutes or so for the man to appear before walking another fifty paces and repeating the process.

It might seem strange to do it that way but he figured that even a dense man would figure out what Harry was doing if every ten minutes of so he was called back to Little Whinging and found that he was a little further away from Harry's house. The way he was doing it he'd only have the man turn up once and hopefully he wouldn't realize where they were in relationship to the house he lived in.

When the man finally turned up Harry tried to think about how far he was from his house but didn't have the words to describe it. Later on he'd find that it was about a mile, a considerable distance when thinking about the age of the person the sensors were set to watch.

He was a little startled when he heard the by now common crack that accompanied the old mans appearance. He might have been waiting for it, but then he'd been waiting for it the last thirty times he'd stopped so he'd relaxed a little. Like any other young boy he'd looked around to find the source of such a loud noise that happened near to him and thus saw the man approaching at an ambling walk while looking around for whatever Harry had done. Today he was wearing a Van Winkle robe in bright orange with yellow stripes and Harry had to wince and look away it was so bright.

"Ah, good morning young lad. If I'm not mistaken you're name is Harry right?" If Harry hadn't already known the man he might have believed the kindly old mans softly spoken words. As it was he nodded silently in assent before asking a question of his own.

"Who are you?" He really wasn't expecting an answer since people rarely bothered to introduce themselves to five year olds so he was a little surprised when the man spoke up.

"My name is Albus Dumbledore," Harry filed the name quickly and ran it through his head a couple of times to make sure he had it right, "and I knew your parents when they were not much older than you." Well that was certainly unexpected Harry thought.

"You knew my mommy and daddy?"

"Oh yes, I knew them for a long time. Until they died in fact." Albus murmured sadly as he remembered that sad day in October. It was such a bittersweet memory, on one hand two of his brightest pupils had died, while on the other the Dark Lord Voldemort had been driven from his body. He didn't know why he was being so candid with the child. Maybe it was the fact that he knew the child wouldn't remember any of it shortly that had him speaking of the past today. Halloween was approaching once more and he always became slightly maudlin around this time of year.

"Oh," Harry said quietly, after all what else could he say? "Could you tell me about them?"

"Well maybe a little bit. You see your mummy was a very intelligent young witch, while your daddy was quite a powerful young wizard. Together they were fighting a very bad man along with some friends," Albus decided that was enough about the bad things. A child this young didn't need to know that the bad man had killed his parents to get to him. "You remind me so much of them. You look just like your father, you even have the same hair as he did. Your eyes though are just like your mothers, she always had the most expressive eyes I've ever seen." The old man smiled as he reminisced.

Something about what Albus had said had finally cottoned on in young Harry's mind though, 'Hold on. Witch? Wizard? Like in the stories? Magic and all that?' A whole new world of possibilities opened up before Harry with those thoughts.

"Is that what I've been doing?"

"Pardon?"

"Magic?" Harry asked impatiently.

"Magic? Why? What have you done Harry?" Albus asked softly. It wouldn't matter how or even if he answered the question since he was going to obliviate the boy anyway and it might prove a to be a quicker and better way to reverse whatever the child had done this time.

"I was looking at these flowers," Harry waved his hand at the shrubs by old Mrs Willkins place. It was true as well, he'd been watching the bees busily at work collecting pollen, the flowers had just been a side effect of that. Then he'd had the idea for his next piece of what he now thought of as magic and 'wished' for them to turn from bright yellow into a bright blue. They were still very pretty flowers and they'd win Mrs Wilson more awards than they ever had before if she saw them but that wasn't what Harry was after. "They were yellow."

That was enough explanation for Albus, "I see," he actually smiled at what was a good feat of magic for anyone let alone a five year old without a wand. "Then I suppose I'd best return them to their natural colour. Though I must admit this shade of royal blue is rather striking." Flick-swish went the stick in his hand and Harry noted that the flowers were once more bright yellow. Then he turned to Harry once more, "Obliviate. You're a long way from home Harry, maybe you should return there. It would also be wise if you didn't venture this far without someone being with you, don't you agree?" Harry nodded obediently and turned with a dull look towards his 'home' and trudged off. Albus watched him for a while before apparating away.

Harry on the other hand was wondering who the old guy thought he was and why he thought he could order him around like that. If he understood what he'd seen before he knew that the man was making people forget things that this Albus Dumbledore didn't want them to know, and that added another thought to his growing list of questions. The only place he knew of that he could get answers was the library where he'd started this experiment earlier. Well he could get answers from school he supposed but he wouldn't be going there until he was six. He would normally have been in a pre-school but as they cost money neither of his relatives had wanted to spend the extra money. Not when public school would be available in just a year. Dudley of course would get the extra year of schooling just so that they'd have another piece of evidence to wave in front of him to prove how superior their little Diddums was in comparison to the freak.

Hearing a sharp cracking sound Harry immediately reversed his course and headed for the library since he knew the old man never stuck around to watch him do whatever he'd been 'ordered' to do. Harry might not know the word 'assume' but he knew what it meant just by observation.

The return trip was much quicker for the sprightly child than his trip home since he didn't have to stop for five or so minutes every fifty paces. So it was with a sense of relief that Harry pushed open the door to the old building and stepped into the cool interior. It was only early October and so it could still get quite warm during the day a fact that wasn't helped by the lack of cloud in the sky. The air was moist and humid since it had rained briefly just yesterday and now that the sun was out again it felt even hotter.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the artificial lights but he smiled when he was finally able to see the head librarian sitting at the counter. He would admit under duress that he actually liked the old battle-axe as she jovially called herself, since she was in fact nicer to the patrons than the young woman who assisted her.

"Hello Harry dear, back again?" she asked earning herself a glare from the young woman next to her. Mrs Crump ignored the lass though since she was the senior librarian, and what was the point of being the leader if you didn't get to flout the rules? Besides it'd been a really quiet day and the only other person in the room was old Mr Delkins from over in Avercombie St and nothing short of a bomb going off in his vicinity would disturb that man since he was deafer than the proverbial post.

"Um yes Mrs Crump. I want to learn about magic and witches and wizards and stuff like that," Harry stated quickly. He wasn't sure how you generally asked people stuff like this, in fact the only times magic was brought up at home his relatives would get real angry. He sure hoped Mrs Crump wasn't going to get angry at him or he didn't know how he'd find out about it.

"So you want to learn about magic huh?" she chose to ignore the indignant snort from the junior librarian. "Enough of that Flo, it never hurts a child to use their imagination. Besides there's a lot you can learn about the world even if most people don't believe in magic. If you don't mind I think I'll take a little break and show young Harry here some of the books we have." She didn't wait for an answer that would have been meaningless in any case since she was in charge and it wasn't like they were rushed off their feet.

"Why don't you come with me? Firstly though we have to figure out what you want to know about since there are so many aspects to magic."

/ To be continued at some point….. \

A/N – I seem to remember that the summer of 1985 or maybe it was 1986 was particularly hot and I was living in Durham at that stage and that's in the north of the country so it's a little cooler than what Surrey would have been. Now that I live in Australia though I know what hot really is, lol. But back then it felt like the heat would never end and even late in October the days were quite warm.

Anyway like I said I just wanted to throw out this plot bunny because it was disrupting the story flow on 'Hell hath no fury'. Still all that aside reviews are always appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

Witchkraft the Muggle way

Chapter 2

A/N:- My apologies for the delay in updates. My muse abandoned me due to real life issues. I hope that you still like the idea for this story and the way I write. If so, please don't hesitate to drop me a review. You can review if you don't like it as well, just try to let me know why you don't like it. No flames please, there's no need for them. If you don't like it enough to flame then go elsewhere and find something more enjoyable to read.

This is a massive AU, not in size but number of changes it will inflict on canon. Please don't read this and tell me how it contradicts something in canon, because you have been warned that it's AU. There is no ship set for this fic. He's only five at the moment.

With all that said, please enjoy.

/ ch2 begin \

Harry didn't know what to expect but Mrs Crump had taken him back to the small office behind the main desk so that they could talk privately. He wasn't really sure why they needed to do that and he looked sceptical enough that she'd also added she wouldn't mind a cuppa while they talked. Apparently not drinking tea in front of the libraries customers was a rule that couldn't be broken, not like the 'Being Quiet' rule.

So here he sat on an ancient office chair that'd probably been around as long as the library had been open, swinging his short legs in a rhythm all his own as he watched her bustle around the small kitchenette. A short time later the sound of a kettle whistling broke the silence and the old woman, by Harry's perspective where ten was positively ancient and he didn't have words to express how old Mrs Crump must be, was very shortly sitting across the small desk from him. He watched fascinated as she pursed her lips and slurped a small sip from the mug in her hands before sitting back and sighing in appreciation of one of the finer things created by civilization.

Harry waited for her to speak since he'd had manners literally beaten into him at a much younger age, though he was waiting for her words of wisdom with baited breath. She must know a lot of stuff working as she did with all these books. So there he sat in silence with his wide innocent green eyes watching her every move so that he wouldn't miss anything important.

"I don't know what to really tell you Harry. One thing I can tell you is that I don't believe in magic." Well that certainly wasn't what he was waiting to hear and his crestfallen look must have communicated as much she felt bad, like she'd just kicked a puppy. "Don't get me wrong Harry, just because I don't believe in something doesn't mean that it doesn't. It just means that I haven't seen anything that would convince me that magic does exist. Hmm, let me see if I can explain it so you understand…." Henrietta sat back in the chair opposite the little boy for a moment and thought about it.

"Harry? You believe there are elephants don't you?" It might seem like a silly question but what do you ask a small child that they'll understand. Philosophy is normally beyond most sane adults so how do you make a child understand it?

Harry might not understand why the question was being asked but he chose to nod his head anyway. Dudley had been full of stories about the times he'd been to the zoo and all the animals he'd seen. He'd been happy to shove the picture books in Harry's face with full colour pictures of everything he'd supposedly seen. The only two animals that Harry hadn't believed Dudley had seen were something Dudley had called an Aardvark, it just didn't look real to him. The other was a weird little creature called a Duck-billed Platypus, there was no way that was a real animal, it looked like someone had taken parts from lots of other creatures and sewn them together or something. For some reason the thought of a massive animal like the elephant hadn't raised any objections in the little boy when he'd been shown the picture, though that might have had more to do with the appearance of a zoo-keeper in the photo.

She was grateful that she wasn't going to have to go through a list of animals until she found one that he believed in but probably hadn't seen, "Have you ever seen a real elephant Harry?" violent shaking of his head, "But you believe they're real?" hesitant nodding, "Have you seen pictures of them?" the nodding became firmer as Harry felt himself back on firmer ground with his answers. He wasn't sure why she was asking them but he was sure she would get to the point soon. It turned out he was right when she continued.

"Would you have believed in elephants if you hadn't seen a picture of one. Would you have thought that there were these really big animals with wrinkly grey skin with huge flapping ears and a nose that they could wave in the air and pick things up with?"

Harry blinked for a moment as he thought, when you put it like that it didn't sound quite so sensible but…but he'd seen a picture. Hadn't he?

"For me magic is like that. Lots of people say it's real, but I haven't seen anything that would make me believe in it. Having said that, I also might point out that I don't totally disbelieve that magic might exist. If someone came to me and showed me some magic that I couldn't prove wasn't magic then I'd believe in it just like you believe in elephants," she finished. Harry sat quietly as he pondered what she'd just said. It was hard for his young mind to follow the librarians logic train, and besides now that she'd described an elephant like that he wasn't sure he believed in them anymore. On the other hand she said that if someone showed her magic then she'd believe in it….

"Mrs Crump, can I show you some magic?" Harry ventured hesitantly.

Henrietta Crump smiled at Harry, "Of course you can Harry," she prepared herself to be obviously impressed at what ever 'magic' trick he'd learned. Even if he flubbed it with the normal dexterity of a five year old child she'd be happy to make a fuss over the serious little boy who came into her library and sat far too quietly in the corner when he was looking in the picture books. She'd worried about him for a while now but not really known what to do about her concerns. It worried her that he came to the library by himself.

At first she'd thought he lived very close when he popped in almost everyday. Then one day out of curiosity she'd followed him home and found he lived a long way away for a five year old, cripes, most ten year olds wouldn't walk that far to come to a library. The fact that he looked like he didn't want to go home made her question his home-life but with no real visual cue other than a suspicious mind there was nothing she could really take to the police or anyone in authority. So she'd done what she could for him, made him feel welcome in the library and provided some biscuits and a sandwich for him occasionally.

So it was with very wide eyes that she watched one of the books on the table lift upwards and float suspended a good foot above the flat surface. Leaning closer she held her breath as she examined it, even going as far as waving her hands over it to make sure that it wasn't hanging from wires or something. Not that Harry would have had a chance to set something like that up in the first place.

"Can I touch it?" she asked hesitantly, not knowing what would interrupt the magic. Yes magic, that was the only possibility that made sense, and suddenly Harry wanting to know about it made much more sense than it had before. At his nod she reached out a tentative hand and gave the book, volume 23 of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a nudge. She shouldn't really have been surprised when the book didn't move but she was. She'd thought that his question about magic had been a normal child's inquisitiveness but now she knew better, he had a real need to know what he could do, even she could see that. From what little she recalled this was much like telekinesis

One of the things she knew was that she didn't know enough to help him, and didn't know anyone who did. That wouldn't stop her trying though, either to help him herself or find people who could help him.

"That's incredible Harry! How are you making it do that?" Harry shrugged, as he couldn't explain it, he really didn't know himself as far as he could tell it was because he wanted it to happen. Henrietta watched the boy as he frowned, the book might not be that heavy but it was obvious that he was using energy of some kind to get it to do what he wanted, that and he was beginning to perspire a little as he glowered at the book.

"You can let it down now Harry," she said softly. Harry sighed in relief as he released the book and it fell to the table with a muffled thump. "Well I think that was enough to convince me that magic does exist. How long have you been able to do things like that?" Again Harry shrugged, he'd been doing things like that for as long as he could remember, which admittedly wasn't all that long since he hadn't been alive that long.

"Hmm, well let me think about this. Like I said, I didn't believe in magic so I never really paid much attention to that section of the library before," of course she'd replaced books on the shelves and re-ordered books from the catalogue when she'd decided that she'd had her current selection long enough. The fact that the Little Whinging library had a selection of twenty or thirty books on the field in total was only a minor iota of information at the moment since she'd be looking through what she had very shortly and gleaning whatever she could. Another thought cropped up as she took another sip while watching the serious young child. "Uh, Harry?" she waited for him to look up from the biscuit he'd hesitantly taken from the plate.

"Yes Mrs Crump?"

"Do you know how to read?"

Harry shook his head, he didn't know what he was being asked but it was a good guess that if he didn't know the word then he didn't know how to do it.

"Well that's no good," she murmured as she looked at the young boy. It really wasn't surprising he didn't know how to read since he wasn't going to school yet and apparently no one had taken an interest in him learning how. The problem was that he'd need the skill if he really wanted to learn anything about magic since she couldn't be around to teach him everything and there were lots of things he could learn for himself with the right motivation. Something she could tell about the lad was that he was plenty motivated so she knew he would push himself harder than she'd probably want him to. It would mean more work in the near future, but if she could instil a love of reading in him at a young age then she'd have done her job as a librarian and helped him at the same time.

"Before I can teach you anything about magic I'll have to teach you to read," she explained. It would also give her a chance to go through the order books and see if there were any books that she might be able to get for him. It would be a long time before he'd be able to understand a lot of what was written but she'd help him as much as she could. She was also aware there were many supposedly occult bookstores around, that might be more genuine than she'd first thought and she might be able to talk to some of the proprietors and get further more accurate book lists of suggested reading. In fact there was a possibility that she could find out something this very afternoon, there was a small bookshop in Little Whingings shopping district that boasted an extensive section labelled 'Esoterica' though for some reason she'd never really been interested in venturing in to see what was there.

"Now, I want you to return here tomorrow as early as you can, we can make a start and see what happens from there. Can you do that Harry?" she smiled as reassuringly as she could at the little boy. He didn't look too happy at the moment but she could see a gleam in his eyes. If he needed to learn to do this reading thing, she could tell that no force on earth was going to stop him. She briefly wondered about what kind of life could lead to that amount of willpower in a boy so young. She'd seen many children over the years come into this library, she'd seen quiet children, noisy children and she'd seen wilfully disobedient children but in all that time she'd never seen a child driven. She smiled even wider at his resolute nod.

"Go on with you then lad and I'll see you tomorrow. Oh before you go, it might be an idea to practice all the magic that you already know."

Harry just shook his head, there was no way he could practice this at home.

"Why not Harry?"

"Cause then the bad man will come."

"Bad man?"

"Yeah."

"What does this bad man do Harry?"

"He makes everyone forget," Harry admitted forlornly

"And how does he do that Harry?" Henrietta Crump thought this might be another of those mental arts, but instead of moving objects it sounded more like telepathy or maybe mind control. Not exactly something she wanted a five year old playing around with. If she could she'd need to learn something about it so that she could maybe think of a way to defeat it. At the very least she'd tell him that it was a bad thing to do ethically and explain why, not that he seemed to think it was a good thing in any case.

"Pardon Harry? I thought you said something." Henrietta paused for a moment feeling strange. It felt like she should remember something but couldn't, like it was right on the tip of her tongue.

"Did you say something? I do wish you'd speak up," she said just a little exasperated with the young boy. Then a thought crossed her mind, no, surely she wasn't that old?

Harry just stared at her a moment in confusion, he'd told her twice now what the bad man said to make people forget……'Oh!' Harry had his first ever epiphany at that point, the next time he said it he didn't wave his hand mimicking the stick movements and found that it didn't help as that blank look entered her eyes once more. Waiting for that look to leave her he glared into her slightly dilated pupils and suddenly she was back and he was falling in a piece of accidental magic that would help to shape him for years to come. The connection only lasted a few seconds but by the time it was over he had copied every memory the woman across from him had up until the age of ten or so. The shocked expression on his face must have mirrored her own as he'd left copies of his own memories in her mind and since she was better at sorting and organizing her thoughts it didn't take her very long to realize what had happened.

Now instead of sitting there and being obliviated she found that she could remember the incidents he'd been trying to tell her about as if she'd experienced them herself. Not only that but the things that had led up to the 'Bad man' appearing. The rifling of scenes from Harry's young life accelerated even faster and tears began to fall from her eyes as she experienced his early life. Then as if she'd come to the end of the memories they stopped, but there was a feeling there was something else that should be there. She knew Harry was at least five, he'd told her so quite proudly a couple of months ago when he'd explained that she didn't have to worry about him since he was a big boy.

Around the age of two, maybe a little earlier the memories stopped, a little like running into a wall. Looking at it she felt that there were weak points in that wall and wondered what it meant. Thinking about it logically she drew the conclusion that someone had done a major obliviation on the child. The wall blocked everything, just like the obliviation spell had blocked certain memories. It had to be a major obliviation because the ones she'd uncovered so far were weak in comparison and had crumpled easily to her scrutiny. The question was, 'why?' Why go to so much trouble to erase the memories before his second birthday?

She had no ideas as to what could be that important, but felt that she should find out if she could. She'd already beaten the spells that had been used on Harry after that, so this much larger spell must be breakable too. If she could do it…she wondered if this was an accurate depiction of Harry's mind and if so if she could teach him to defeat the obliviation spell. There was the fact that he was able to stop himself from being obliviated now so it seemed logical that it should be possible for the child to break down the barriers that already existed in his head.

Henrietta opened her eyes and regarded the silently solemn little boy as he sat there staring into space.

Harry immediately upon finding that he had more memories than he'd ever had before gravitated towards the ones that felt most comfortable. Those turned out to be the ones of a little girl near his own age, a girl whose life was nothing like his own. She'd grown up knowing that her parents loved her and she'd been well cared for in a stark contrast to his own life. A boy who couldn't even remember the sound of his mothers voice. Fortunately for his sanity he wasn't able to process Henrietta's memories anywhere near as fast as she had assimilated his own he'd only just learned that she was taught to read at the age of three and as a bonus he could remember how to do it now as well. He was just getting to the point where she'd learned the difference between girls pee-pee's and boy pee-pee's when he was interrupted by a crushing hug.

"Oh you poor boy!" Harry would never know just how close he'd come to being scarred for life when she'd interrupted the stream of memories like that. There were certain things that boys just aren't supposed to know and one of those things is how the female mind works when going through puberty. Of course that works the opposite way as well but to be honest Harry wasn't even at the stage where he knew there was a difference between the sexes and he hadn't ever had any friends that would make him think that girls were worst than he was. Having memories of a young woman's wants and needs might have really messed up his sexual preferences later on

Luckily he only got up to the age of ten before the connection broke, which meant that he had access to all of Mrs Crumps early schooling, so it wouldn't matter how much extra schooling Dudley got, not that it would have in any case since the fat lump was useless at studying. Amazingly enough Harry even picked up a smattering of latin from the Catholic school the young Henrietta had attended. Mathematics weren't the girls strong point but he'd have to admit that she was better than he was and he'd be better than anyone else starting school in four months time.

Harry wasn't sure what had just happened and certainly wouldn't try it again if he had any choice in the matter but it would later prove invaluable to his learning ability. The girl hadn't just been taught to read, she'd been taught how to study effectively. Harry realized that the thoughts in his head weren't his own and while he was attempting to sort them into some semblance of order so that he could use them, he found he could do the same with his own thoughts and memories. It was a much slower process to go through his own thought since Henrietta 'Henie' Crump only had pleasant memories of her childhood while he knew he had lots of rather nasty ones that he didn't want to relive like he had hers.

Mrs Crump stared at Harry completely unsure what had just happened or why. She wondered if it was anything like the 'Bad Man' did to him on a regular basis but dismissed that as Harry had told her that he made him and other people forget the magic that he'd done. From that she drew a natural conclusion that the old man had some way to detect when magic was done by the boy and since he hadn't turned up here that it must have a set range. She wondered if Harry knew about it and what it meant. Oh well she'd find out another time, for now she knew that the young child should return to his guardians, not that she wanted him to. If she had her way the boy would never go near those animals again. Unfortunately she couldn't answer any official questions about how she knew Harry was being mistreated. Saying that she read his mind wouldn't do anything for her credibility or the boys safety. Giving Harry another heart felt hug which broke him out of that glaze eyed stare that had been unnerving her for the last few seconds.

"Now, I'm sure you can find somewhere to practice your magic," she smiled at him reassuringly, "and if not you're always welcome here Harry. Now it's probably best if you get along. I know your guardians probably wont care if you don't return but from what I've seen that old man will." The manner of fact way she mentioned the old man, Dumbledore, sent a small shiver down Harrys' spine.

Harry received the second hug he could remember, and with the fact that he was sorting through his memories it was an accurate account as far as he'd gotten, which was about eight months so far. Taking in what Henrietta said, it was very hard to think of her as an old lady with her young memories so fresh in his mind he shivered slightly scared that the man would figure out what was going on and he'd come back. Though he had to admit she was probably right, practicing his magic could only help. He'd seen the fact through the memories that he'd been given. Not that he was going to tell her that he knew all about her young life, he didn't want to get into anymore trouble than he already seemed to be in, and especially not with someone who'd been so nice to him.

Harry slid down from the chair and after giving her a small smile headed for the open door to the library and quickly made his way home leaving behind a thoughtful librarian.

Glancing down at her watch she jumped, she hadn't thought that much time had passed and was shocked. Bustling out of the back room she went about joining Flo in the close down of the library for the day. An hour later she'd caught up with her work and was pleased to note they'd close at half four just as normal.

"I think that's the last of it Mrs Crump, would it be alright if I left a little early?" Flo asked hopefully, she had a date tonight and was hoping to be able to spend a few hours relaxing and getting ready. She wasn't sure but tonight might be important to her relationship with her long-time boyfriend.

"Of course dearie, you go right ahead and I'll see you on Thursday. I think we might as well close now, I don't think we're going to have any more customers this afternoon," she watched for a moment as the young woman left quickly lest the head librarian changed her mind. Looking towards the computer that had become the bane of her life since it'd been installed she booted the monster up. Honestly it'd be faster to phone the London stacks and request they post her a list of books, but this was the new procedure so she'd have to follow it. Now, to remember what she had to do…

The monotonous clicking of the keyboard stalled for a moment as her brain paused to process some of the things that had happened today. Harry had always been an unusual child as far as she was concerned, a little too quiet, too well behaved. Now she knew why, and it wasn't just because the child had told her, but because she had every one of his memories in her head. She knew every time he'd been abused by his relatives. Not that she could do anything about it, no one would believe her if she told them how she knew the things she knew. In fact they'd commit her to an asylum.

There was also no easy way to get evidence either as Vernon Dursley was an extremely careful abuser. No one was likely to believe bad of the man either, he contributed to too many good works, financially. Never got his hands dirty but there was always a cheque…come to think of it…there was always a cheque. Which if you thought about the fact he was only a middle management type you'd have to question where exactly the money came from. The man didn't live the life, he lived in a middle income town, drove a middle income car…

All of that was beside the point though, it wouldn't be possible to pin anything to him without substantial evidence. Harry was the main concern right now. He'd changed her view of the world in one afternoon. It was something to think that the world could be magical to the fact that there was real magic in the world and she'd just witnessed some of it… Thinking about it took a fair bit of time and she needed to turn on the lights to make her way out of the library when she finished her search. She'd print it out in the morning and figure where to go from there.

/ To be continued \

A/N:- I know, it's been a long time between updates but I hope you enjoy this anyway. It's mainly set up still as this is a major AU and I'm going to be doing things much differently than cannon. I won't go into too much detail since that would defeat the purpose of writing the story as you'd already know the twists and turns I'm thinking of. One thing to note is that this won't be a super-godlike Harry fic. It will portray him as more intelligent than cannon though, which if I'm honest won't be that hard.

Now before anyone jumps down my throat and tells me Harry is smart, and Harry is creative and…Whatever else you want to tell me. Lets just look at some evidence. When he's in school with Dudley he's punished whenever he does better than his bulbous cousin, therefore he never exerts himself. Hermione is the knowledge broker in their trio, Harry is the big guns magically and Ron is….erm, not really sure. The loyal sidekick? Anyway, with 'LUCK' on his side he's protected once more by his mothers sacrifice and lives to see second year. Dumbledore announces that Voldemort isn't as dead as everyone thought and that Harry was going to be a major target for the psychopath. Does Harry sit up and take notice? Does he hit the books to learn as much as he can? No! He goes on as if nothing has changed.

Oh don't get me wrong, there was all the crap that happened in second year going on to distract him, but if you take the actual time involved in each scene that still leaves him with significant time to train and learn, and even if not he could ask for Hermione's help like he did in fifth year to run the DA.


End file.
